


Finger Painting

by littlelovelyspiderling



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: But also, Domestic Avengers, Fluff, Gen, Irondad, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Platonic Relationships, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Prank Wars, Precious Peter Parker, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), Spider-Man: Homecoming (Movie), Ticklish Peter Parker, except no one's dead besides purple grape man, pete pranks his teammates so they prank him back with tickles the end, spiderson, ticklish!peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25244890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelovelyspiderling/pseuds/littlelovelyspiderling
Summary: Peter decides to prank his teammates in attempt to cheer everyone up, only for his teammates to prank him back using their new favorite mood-lifting method.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Peter Parker & Sam Wilson, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 152





	Finger Painting

Peter Parker _loved_ pranks. Who didn’t?

Growing up, he and his uncle used to engage in long, elaborate prank wars all the time, each trying to one up the other. The mischievous game of back and forth never ceased to leave them both in stitches. Nowadays, May rarely passed up the opportunity to douse his food in pepper flakes or splash him with water while they were cleaning the dishes together. It was her way of keeping Ben’s playful legacy alive.

And after all of the pain and suffering the Avengers had gone through over the past year, Peter figured it was time to bring some of that playfulness to the team.

Initially, he planned to prank each member one at a time. While the spar room was empty, Peter had snuck in with his means of destruction. He and Stark were going to test how effective his spidey sense was at warning him of impending threats when he couldn’t see them coming. Little did Tony know the blindside that was coming _his_ way.

He waited on the ceiling, grinning sinisterly as approaching footsteps met his ears. But to his surprise, it sounded like more than one pair of feet. Voices joined the footfalls as the door opened, and Stark, Sam, and Rhodes entered the room.

“—test his response to multiple attacks from different directions,” Tony said, shutting the door behind them. Then he stared forward, finding the space before him vacant, and a frown gnarled his features. “Wait, where the hell did he—?”

_Three birds, one stone,_ Peter thought. _I’ll take it_. Triumphantly, Peter tore the webbing away. In an instant, fifty water balloons filled with paint rained down from the ceiling and pummeled the men below, dousing them in explosions of color. Startled cries and yelps jumped from their lips until the assault finally subsided. The superheroes were left stunned and soaked from head to toe, sputtering in disbelief as a waterfall of laughter came pouring from overhead.

“Haha!” Peter howled. Everyone looked up at him bewilderedly. “Thihis is so much better than I expehected! Your fahaces—oho gohod—I cahan’t!”

He knelt upside-down and doubled over with giggles. Stark scoffed, tongue-in-cheek.

“Peter? _You_ did this?”

Rhodey wiped his eyes and blinked repeatedly. “That certainly was…unexpected.”

“You little punk!” Sam hollered, flicking the paint from his hands in disgust. “Oh, you are _so_ asking for it.”

Spider-Man didn’t seem to be listening to them. He was too busy laughing his ass off and pounding his fist against the ceiling. Seeing some of the world’s most famous superheroes dripping in paint was just too hilarious. Despite how annoyed they were with his prank, the Avengers couldn’t help but smile at the kid’s hysterical reaction.

“Oh mahan, I cahan’t breathe,” Peter wheezed. “This is the best day ever.”

“Come down here,” Sam said. “I think I can change your mind.”

Spider-Man shook his head while giggles continued to spill from his lips. Tony ran his fingers through his paint-soaked hair and grinned at the others.

“Come on guys, don’t be such sticks in the mud. The kid’s just trying to have a little fun. Right, Spidey?”

Peter was surprised how well Mr. Stark was taking an ass-load of paint-filled water balloons to the face. He nodded between chuckles. “I mean, yeah. You’ve all seemed kinda down lately. I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

“Oh, of course. We all understand.” Stark glanced between the other three men. “You know what? I think it’s time we followed Pete’s lead and had a little fun of our own. What do you say, fellas? You in?”

Peter’s giggling faltered. Sam and Rhodey shared a knowingly diabolical grin.

“Hell yeah we are.”

Before Spider-Man could ask what they meant by that, Sam pulled a metal rod from his belt and flung it at Peter as hard as he could. Spider-Man barely flinched out of the way, his spidey sense triggering his reflexes an instant quick enough. Not a second later, a taser round and a stun blast flew at him and struck the ceiling mere inches from his body. He stared down at the group with wide eyes.

“Here’s a fun idea: let’s see how long his dumb second sense thing can keep him safe from our vengeance.”

“Wait—hey—guys—it was just a _joke_ —”

Projectiles started zipping towards him, one after the other, promising a world of pain if they hit their target. Peter scrambled across the ceiling with a yelp, shuddering at the idea of what they would do to him if he was caught. This was not the kind of retaliation he was used to.

“Come on! I used washable paint!”

“Spread out,” Tony instructed his drenched, candy-colored team. “Don’t give him any place to hide.”

Sam and Rhodey did as they was told. At least none of them we wearing their full avenging outfits; if that were the case, he’d be toast in an instant.

Peter ducked and flipped and somersaulted through the air as rounds and objects whooshed past him in a relentless wave. The room was big, but not big enough for him to evade three attackers forever. His spidey sense was in constant tingle mode. _All right, that’s it._ Peter cartwheeled across the ceiling and fired a glob of webbing at Sam, which glued his arm to his side. While the middle was exposed, Spider-Man threw himself between Tony and Rhodes and shot a web-splat into both of their faces, rendering them blind for a moment. The distraction offered Peter the opportunity to stick to the door and pull with all his might.

But it was locked. And he didn’t know how to open it. Spider-Man was trapped.

And since he’d doused all of his enemies in paint, it didn’t take them long to free themselves from the webbing. As Peter cursed and darted back up the wall, Stark shot at him with his watch-gauntlet. The projectile hit Spider-Man’s left hand.

“Ow!” He flinched, nearly losing his hold on the ceiling. Peter held his stinging hand to his eyes. A strange metal block was stuck to it. To his disbelief, the metal started spreading over his palm, up his fingers, thickening rapidly. It looked an awful lot like Tony’s nano-tech. When he tried to pull it off with his other hand, the metal film spread to that one, too. Soon enough, both palms were shrouded in thick metal prisons. Not only did they make his hands incapable of sticking to any surface—now, he could no longer fire his web-shooters.

“Crap! What is this?” Peter yelled, sprinting across the ceiling. He dodged another one of Sam’s projectile attacks, but that led to a misstep, giving Stark the chance to hit his right foot with another chunk of nano-bots. Peter froze and flailed with only one foot stuck to the ceiling: his last line of defense against the unforgiving consequences waiting for him down below. If he lost his hold, he was done for.

“Ah! W-wait!” He dangled helplessly by his toes, a sitting duck. Then Tony hit his left foot with nano-tech the same time Rhodey fired a stun blast into his back. Spider-Man dropped from the ceiling and hit the floor with a grunt, sprawled flat like roadkill.

“Ow…ugh…” he groaned. He tried to reach up and rub at the bump on his head, but his arm wouldn’t move. Neither of his arms would. In fact, all of his limbs were pinned to the ground. Peter looked at his wrists to discover the nano-tech had morphed into clasps that were firmly glued to the floor. The same went for the nano-bots on his ankles.

“What the—?” he cried. “I can’t move!” Sam, Rhodes, and Stark converged on him, smiling viciously.

“Gotcha,” Wilson sneered. Spider-Man grimaced and struggled against the restraints.

“Come on, guys. Why are you being so mean? I was just trying to cheer everyone up.”

“You did,” Tony replied enthusiastically. “Now we’re just returning the favor.”

“I don’t think you understand how pranks work,” Peter huffed. “Attacking me does not make me very cheery.”

“True,” Sam concurred, kneeling beside the young hero, “but if my memory serves correctly, I’m pretty sure this does.”

Sam reached out and gently fluttered his fingertips against Peter’s tummy, causing the teen to cringe. It was the last sensation he expected to feel, yet he should have seen it coming. The three of them knew all too well how ticklish poor Spider-Man was.

“Aha!” he squeaked, dread rushing through him and blush consuming his face. “N-noho! No it doesn’t!”

“Really?” Sam asked. He swirled his index finger in a long, slow circle across the kid’s belly, smearing his costume with purple paint while also making him twitch and leap. “Because if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were smiling under that mask.”

“Stahap!” Peter giggled. This was _so_ bad. This wasn’t the first time they’d used his extreme ticklishness to torment him, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Except, unlike past instances, in this scenario, he was stuck to the floor—helpless to protect himself. He was totally, utterly screwed. How did he always get himself into messes like this? When would he ever learn? Peter squirmed and wiggled in attempt to get away, but it was no use. He was stuck, restrained, and growing more and more flustered as Sam’s wiggly fingers started moving faster and faster across his vulnerable tummy.

“I bet he is smiling,” Rhodes said, sitting on the floor opposite of Wilson. He pinched the top of Spider-Man’s mask. “Why don’t we take this off and see?”

“Noho!” Peter whined as Rhodey pulled his mask off his face, revealing the blushing, smiley teenager underneath. He bit his lip to try to feign composure and stem the endless outpouring of giggles, but was immediately foiled by Sam squeezing both of his sides right above his hipbones. Peter threw his head back with a shriek, floundering like crazy.

“Aw, see?” Tony cooed. “Look at that happy face!”

“I think our prank is really lifting his spirits!” Sam said. He kneaded his thumbs deep into the kid’s torso, chuckling as he jumped and bucked and giggled wildly.

“Nohahat hahappy!” Peter squealed.

“Not happy?” Rhodey repeated, sharing a devious look with his friends. He reached out and spidered his fingers right above the kid’s armpits. “Are you sure? Maybe I should help, then. Your happiness is our number one priority, after all.”

Before Rhodes even touched him, Spider-Man’s giggling jumped higher in both pitch and volume. “N-nohohaha!” he cried, pulling valiantly at the metal cuffs pinning him arms above his head. “Rhohodes, _wahait_ —”

Ignoring him, Rhodey went straight for the kid’s weak spot. He needled and clawed at Peter’s exposed underarms with all ten fingers, switching intensity and tactics every few seconds to keep him guessing. He poked and pinched, then scritched and scratched, then dragged his fingernails up and down the full length of Peter’s arms, all while Sam was busy curling his hands into claws and shaking them into Spider-Man’s ribs and belly. Peter was at his wit’s end being tickled by just one person; he was certain two would be the death of him. And as soon as Rhodey’s fingers made contact with his skin, his suspicions were confirmed.

“AHAAhahahagh!” Peter screeched, whipping his head from side to side. “Shihit— _wahahait!_ I cahahan’t—I cahahahahaaa!”

“Can’t what?” Sam inquired. “Can’t _believe_ how much we’re cheering you up?”

“Spidey’s got some pretty ticklish underarms, doesn’t he?” Rhodes observed, fluttering his fingers all over the unbelievably sensitive spots.

“He’s ticklish all over. It’s hilarious. Just a little poke here, a little poke there, here a poke, there a poke, everywhere a-poke poke…” Sam jabbed and wiggled his fingers into every inch of the kid’s tiny tummy. As much as he tried to fight it, Peter jolted and squeaked beneath his every touch. It was like they knew exactly what to do to render him a squirming, blushing mess. To be fair, it wasn’t a very difficult feat, and they had experience on their side. This was not the kind of revenge prank Peter had been anticipating. It was unbearably cruel and effective.

As they continued to tickle torture the poor teen, Sam and Rhodes couldn’t help but giggle at the Peter’s childlike laughter. They, like most people who knew the kid well, were starting to understand why Tony was so endeared by him.

Meanwhile, Peter was falling to pieces. His loud, squeaky belly-laughs were rapidly being replaced by hiccups, and the feeling of four hands endlessly teasing and tweaking two of the most ticklish areas of his body was driving him insane. There was nothing he could do but wriggle and twitch and laugh until his sides ached. There was no escape in sight. He had to make it stop.

“Merherhercy! Merhercyhy!” Peter pleaded. “Ihi’m gohonna dihihihie!”

“Can you die from too much happiness?” Tony asked. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

Neither of his tormentors seemed to be listening to him, so Peter turned to his mentor. He looked up at the billionaire from his defenseless position on the floor, tears shining in the corners of his eyes. “M-Mihister Starharhaaak!” he squealed between another bout hiccups. “Hehehelp me! Pleeheehease!”

Tony tilted his head to the side and smiled sympathetically. Peter was too cute for his own good. “Aw, kiddo. Are you sure we’ve lifted your spirits enough?”

As Stark was saying this, Sam started grinding his knuckles into Peter’s ribcage, and Peter thought he might explode. He arched his spine and squeezed his eyes shut and screeched with helpless laughter.

“AHAHAHA! Yehehes! Pleeheehease! Nohoho morhorhahahahaa!”

“I don’t know,” Rhodes said suspiciously. “Are we sure we’ve gotten him back enough? He did douse us in paint, after all.” James brushed his fingers along the sides of Peter’s neck experimentally and grinned when the kid scrunched his shoulders to his ears with a sharp giggle of surprise. “Damn. You really are ticklish everywhere, aren’t ya?” He scuttled his nails all over Peter’s neck, occasionally drilling his thumbs into the muscle right above his collarbones, and watched as goosebumps flared across what little skin Peter had exposed. The kid thrashed as much as his restraints would allow with a slew of high-pitched laughter.

“I think he needs at least two more minutes of solid cheering up,” Sam said, scratching Peter’s tummy like a puppy's. “Would you care to join us, Mr. Stark?”

Tony sighed as he looked down at the giggly superhero, then smiled. “Two more minutes,” he said adamantly. He sat down by Peter’s twitchy feet and grabbed his left foot in his hand.

“NOHOHO!” Peter begged, trying and failing to wrench his foot free from Stark’s grip. “You ahahahassholes!”

“You want us to make it ten?” Sam inquired. That shut Peter up real quick, though he continued to laugh helplessly.

“I’ve got an idea!” Rhodes said, dipping his hands into a puddle of paint next to Peter’s head. “Why don’t we spend these last couple minutes turning Spider-Man into a lovely finger painting? We shouldn’t let all this perfectly good paint go to waste.”

“Oh, yes! I love that!” Sam dabbed his fingertips into the closest pool of paint, granting Peter a few moments to breathe. “What kind of picture should we paint?”

“Whatever your heart desires.” 

Once he was satisfied with his assembled palette, Rhodey started gently gliding his fingers across Peter’s face and ears. Despite his attempts to stave it off, Peter cracked into a smile and giggled softly, scrunching up his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. He’d never considered that they’d use the means of his own prank against him. Talk about _rude._

“I think I’ll paint you into a clown,” Rhodes decided. “How does that sound?”

“Stohop!” Peter said, jerking away from Rhodes’ feathery touch. Rhodey grinned.

“If you’re not going to let me paint your face, then I’ll just go back to this.”

With that, Rhodes pounced on his underarms full-force, wrecking him with an entirely new level of tickling intensity. Peter sputtered in surprise before busting out laughing, his head reeling with the need to immediately make the torture stop, even though it had only just started up again two seconds ago.

“AHAHANOHOHAHA! P-pahaint my fahace! My fahahace!”

“Good,” Rhodes said triumphantly. He stopped tickling Peter’s armpits and re-wet his hands with fresh paint. Then he began tracing his index finger along Peter’s jawline, followed by his hairline, outlining his face in white paint. His delicate touch tickled Peter like a feather and made him giggle uncontrollably.

“I’m painting the ocean,” Sam announced, scooping handfuls of blue paint into both of his palms. Then he dumped it all on to Peter’s belly and started spreading it everywhere with his hands, causing Peter to cringe and laugh as Sam’s fingers slipped along his sensitive sides and ribcage.

“Hold still,” Rhodey demanded, painting little spots of red on top of his already rosy cheeks.

“Ihi’m tryhyhing!” Peter giggled brightly. “It’s harhard!” He jumped and squealed when Sam’s fingers crept up to his underarms and started fluttering against the hollows. “Ahahaha! Hehehey!”

“I’m painting you whole torso to look like the ocean! There has to blue everywhere!” he explained. A mischievous sparkle twinkled in his eye. “Let’s see. We need more blue _here._ ” He brought both hands down to the middle of Peter’s tummy and drilled all ten fingers deep into his flesh. Peter leapt and gasped and squirmed with laughter. “And some more _here_ ,” he continued, tweaking both of his sides with sharp, quick pinches again and again and again.

“Sahahaham!” Peter cried.

“And perhaps let’s add some…here.”

Two hands were suddenly squeezing Peter’s legs above his kneecaps with needling repetition. The sensation sent shocks up his spine and made him jolt and twist and shriek.

“AHAHACK! NOHO—S-STAHAHAHAHAAA!” He bucked and squirmed and laughed himself silly, but Sam kept squeezing. As his hands inched higher and higher up Peter’s legs, his reactions became more and more hysterical. He couldn’t believe how much it tickled. He couldn’t handle another second. But his violent struggling and hiccup-filled laughter only seemed to encourage Sam to squeeze faster and harder.

“His legs are ticklish too?” Tony chuckled. “What part of you _isn’t_ ticklish, kid?”

“His legs are _super_ ticklish,” Sam laughed. “Look how red his face is!”

“HEHEHEHELP!” Peter cackled, balling his hands into fists. Sam was certain he’d explode if he kept this up, so he moved back to the kid’s belly, adding waves and fish to his ocean as Peter giggled breathlessly. “Gah..hah…oho gohohosh…eheeheeheh…”

“What are you going to paint, Tones?” Rhodey asked, dabbing black paint around the kid’s eyes.

Tony drenched his hand in green paint. “I’ll paint him some shoes. Leprechaun shoes. You want some little green leprechaun shoes, kid?”

Peter was too busy giggling dazedly beneath Sam’s tummy tickles and Rhodey’s feathery touches. He’d almost forgotten about Stark’s hand around his foot. He was quickly reminded of the fact when he felt a finger glide up his arch.

“AHA!” Peter squeaked, flinching so much Rhodey smeared paint all over his forehead. “Mihister Starhark!”

“You said you were going to stay still!” Rhodes chastised him. Tony continued to tickle his foot, adding the rest of his fingers to the equation, and giggles rained from Peter’s lips as his toes twitched in protest.

“I cahahahan’t!” he laughed. Peter’s Spider-Man suit was designed to allow his hands and feet to stick to walls through the fabric, which meant it wasn’t very thick. So it basically did nothing to protect any part of him from tickle attacks, particularly the bottoms of his feet. Stark switched to tickling both of his feet, scurrying his fingers up and down the sides and center of each foot. Peter tried kicking his legs and scrunching up his toes, but it did nothing the deter Tony’s blunt fingernails scouring every ticklish inch of his feet.

Although they were all tickling him relatively gently now, thirty fingers stroking and tweaking his ridiculously sensitive self for as long as they had been was too maddening for words. Peter needed this to end before he died either of laughter or embarrassment.

“Ohokahay,” he wheezed, his face aching from so much smiling. “Ihi’m cheered uhuhup! Youhou dihid it! Now pleehease—please stahahahahaaa!” His words dissolved into nonsensical giggling when Sam’s fingers returned to his ribs, worming and wiggling between each individual bone.

Rhodey booped his nose with a spot of red paint then looked back at the others. “What do you say? Is our thirst for pranking vengeance quenched?”

“For now, I guess,” Sam said, wiping his hands on the last remaining bit of Spider-Man’s costume that wasn’t splattered with paint. He gave his side a parting squeeze before laying off.

Tony stood and walked to stand by Peter’s head. The kid’s neck and ears were almost the same color as his suit. His clown paint job looked more like a random palette of colors smeared all over his face by someone wearing a blindfold. The poor kid was a Jackson Pollock gone wrong—although that was kinda all of them at that point. But the wide, exhausted smile on his face filled Stark’s heart with warmth. With a tap on his watch, the nano-tech clasps dissolved away.

“Ihi’m in _pain,_ ” Peter moaned, rolling on to his side and curling into a ball. The three Avengers standing over him chuckled.

“Next time, don’t dump paint on your teammates,” Sam retorted.

“I juhust…wanted to…cheeheer you up…” he giggled quietly. “Uhuhugh…”

“Oh, you did,” Rhodey reassured him. “I am one hundred percent cheered up.”

“Me too,” Tony concurred. “You wholeheartedly succeeded.”

“Now I know exactly what to do when me or you or anyone else is bummed out,” Sam said. “Just a little poke, and then…”

Sam reached down and jabbed Peter’s side with his index finger. Immediately, the kid squeaked out a laugh and hugged himself around the middle.

“See? Instant serotonin.”

“Stohop!” Peter giggled. “Let me _lihihive…”_

“Are you okay, kid?” Tony asked with sudden earnest, offering him a hand. Peter hesitated before accepting it, feeling wired and tingly as he rose to his feet, his belly still bubbling with giggly butterflies.

“Yeah,” he finally answered, unable to wipe the dopey smile from his face. “I just…ugh. I dohon’t understand why you guys have to escalate things so quickly. Why couldn’t you just put dye in my shampoo or dump malic acid on my pizza like normal people? Why do you always end up doing… _that_ to me?”

“What, tickling you?” Sam smiled crookedly and made a move for his tummy, but Peter flinched out of the way this time. “Because it’s fun to watch you squirm.”

“And no matter how many times we do it, you react just as wildly. With your wiggling and screeching and cute little hiccup-laugh.”

Peter’s face went hot. “It’s not…cute,” he murmured.

“I have half a mind to tickle you until you admit it’s cute,” Tony chuckled. When Peter’s eyes went wide, Stark held up his hands. “Not right now. Don’t worry. I think you’ve had enough for today.”

Rhodes patted Peter on the shoulder. “Come on, though—seriously. Is your mood not the tiniest bit improved after all that smiling and laughing?”

As much as Peter hated to admit it, he did feel more peppy and alive now than he had pre-tickle attack. He was certainly more smiley and giggly—that he couldn’t even attempt to hide.

“I mean…maybe,” he ventured to say. When he realized everyone was grinning at him, he backtracked. “But, like, not enough to be worth going through _that!_ You people are evil!”

“We sure are,” Sam said sinisterly. “Don't forget it.”

Peter swallowed and picked his mask up off the floor, which was smeared with paint like the rest of him. “We didn’t even finish the spidey sense test thing we came in here for.”

“Let’s save that for another day,” Stark said, ruffling Peter’s paint-spattered hair. “I think we all could use a shower.”

After all was said and done, Peter was glad he had managed to brighten everyone’s day, even if it wasn’t through the method he’d intended.


End file.
